TUBE TALK: Fox seeks middle ground on start times for World Series games

But with baseball playoff games averaging more than 3 1/2 hours
and some stretching to five hours as managers change pitchers four
and five times an inning, 30 minutes is a step in the right
direction. But only for some.

In an effort to try to let viewers in the East go to bed before
the sun comes up, Fox will start World Series games this season at
7:57 p.m. EDT. That means a 4:57 start time in the West.

Game 1 is Wednesday. A seven-game series would conclude Nov.
5.

The start time is the earliest for any U.S. major sports
championship excluding the Super Bowl. Last year, the average World
Series start time was 8:28 p.m. EDT.

The problem networks face is that to accommodate viewers in the
East, games on the West Coast start before most people clock out of
work. So you lose a good portion of the country at the start of
games.

That could have been significant this season had the Angels and
Dodgers faced off in a Freeway Series. It's not as big a deal now,
since it appears the World Series will match the Philadelphia
Phillies and New York Yankees.

"Prime-time postseason games on Fox have always been scheduled
for a window that maximizes the potential audience from coast to
coast," Fox Sports president Ed Goren said. "The fact is that over
the last few years, games have been ending a bit later than we'd
like. This new schedule should help fans of all ages see week-night
games from start to finish.

"There is certainly a belief that for a younger audience,
particularly on the East Coast, this is a real plus,"

The World Series pregame show will start at 4:30 p.m. PDT, and
Goren said part of moving the starting time up was convincing
affiliates to drop lucrative syndicated shows.

"We couldn't have done this without the cooperation of our
affiliates," Goren said.

The thinking behind moving the start times is that baseball is
losing young viewers. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig says that
isn't necessarily true, but one Phillies-Rockies playoff game in
Colorado this season started at 10 p.m. EDT. How many kids who love
the Phillies were up for the start of that game? Heck, how many
adults were awake for the game? Ridiculous.

Obviously, there is no easy solution to this problem. With the
three-hour difference between time zones, there are built-in
scheduling hurdles.

In the West, we reap the benefit by waking up to college
football on Saturdays and NFL games on Sundays. We don't have to
endure 8 p.m. start times for games to accommodate East Coast
viewers.

Living here, though, does force a lot of us to catch the start
of big games on the radio so people on the East Coast aren't
hearing the cock crow when the last pitch is delivered.

Around the bases

-- Joe Buck and Tim McCarver will be in the Fox booth for the
World Series. McCarver, who is working his record 20th World
Series, has toned things down a little over the years and is now
tolerable. Buck, who is working his 12th Series, wasn't at his best
calling the ALCS, but is a good, professional announcer. Chris
Myers and Ken Rosenthal will roam the ballparks.

-- Chris Rose hosts Fox's pregame show, taking over for Jeanne
Zelasko, who had the job for the last eight Fall Classics. Rose
will work at the game sites with Mark Grace, Eric Karros and White
Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.

-- Jon Miller and Joe Morgan have the radio call on ESPN 800 and
ESPN 710 AM.

-- ESPN2 will present the Web Gem Awards at 5 p.m. Monday.
Hosted by Karl Ravich and John Kruk, the 30-minute show will
present one Web Gem for each of the nine positions and one for the
top fielder at each position.

-- Online voting for the 2010 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence
in baseball broadcasting begins Dec. 1. Bios and ballots of
eligible candidates are available on www.baseballhall.org. Longtime
Padres announcer Jerry Coleman was a Frick Award winner in 2005.
Ted Leitner is on the ballot again this year. Tony Kubek was
honored last year.

Playoff review

-- Chip Caray, the lead announcer for TBS playoff games, had a
tough few weeks. He had a string of odd and missed calls. For
whatever reason, a normally solid announcer was off his game.

-- Ernie Johnson, the host of the TBS postgame show, just didn't
click with Dennis Eckersley, Cal Ripken Jr. and David Wells,
Johnson, who has great rapport with Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith
on TNT's NBA pregame show, couldn't pull it together for baseball
telecasts.

-- The MLB Network has the strongest set of analysts. Barry
Larkin, Mitch Williams and Dan Plesac are good. And Harold Reynolds
brings them all together. Throw in Astros infielder Aaron Boone,
who was brought in for the playoffs, and the MLB Network provided
the best pre- and postgame coverage of the playoffs.

-- I got to listen to the Angels radio team of Rory Markas and
Terry Smith quite a bit during the playoffs, and they're pretty
darn good.

-- I also got to listen to Dan Shulman and Dave Campbell call NL
games. Campbell might be the best analyst on radio or TV.

Tipoff time

-- The marathon that is the NBA season tips off Tuesday with a
doubleheader on TNT that features Celtics-Cavaliers at 4:30 p.m.
and Clippers-Lakers at 7:30 p.m. TNT will carry 53 games this
season, with doubleheaders on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Kevin Harlin,
Doug Collins and Cheryl Miller are one broadcast team, with Marv
Albert, Mike Fratello and Reggie Miller the other.

-- ESPN opens with a doubleheader Wednesday, featuring
Hornets-Spurs at 5 p.m. and Jazz-Nuggets at 7:30 p.m. ESPN and ABC
will combine to carry 90 games. ESPN has doubleheaders on
Wednesdays and Fridays. ABC will have a Sunday showcase game on
Sunday afternoons, starting Jan. 31. Mike Breen, Mike Jackson and
Jeff Van Gundy are one announcing team while Mike Tirico/Dan
Shulman, Hubie Brown and Lisa Salters form another. Ric Bucher and
Doris Burke will also work games.

-- ESPN and ABC will carry five games on Christmas Day,
including Magic-Celtics, Cavaliers-Lakers, Heat-Knicks,
Suns-Clippers and Nuggets-Trail Blazers.

-- NBA-TV has a 70-game schedule, with games on Saturdays,
Sundays and Mondays and an occasional Wednesday and Thursday.

-- The Lakers are back on Fox Sports Net and KCAL (Channel 9) in
L.A. ESPN 710 is the radio home of the Lakers.

-- Fox Sports Prime Ticket is the home of the Clippers. The
team's new radio home is KFWB (980 AM).

NFL talk

-- Jimmy Johnson and Howie Long, Fox NFL analysts, had a lot to
say about the Denver Broncos, who handled the Chargers on Monday
night. Said Johnson: "The biggest surprise is Denver being
undefeated. Last year, they were 8-8 and probably the best team not
in the playoffs. A lot of teams made changes in the offseason
involving coaches they were familiar with, and Denver was very
objective about it. They went out and hired the best. Josh
McDaniels is the best coach out of all the coaches Bill Belichick
has developed. They brought in an outstanding defensive coordinator
in Mike Nolan. Denver made the right moves." Said Long: "You're
talking about a new offense, a new defense with eight new players.
Kyle Orton comes in as quarterback and no one is thinking Orton is
a great signing. Orton looked more like Tom Brady (when the Broncos
played the Patriots) than Brady did. I think Josh McDaniels has
done a remarkable job."

Local notes

-- Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts will call Sunday's Chargers-Chiefs
game in Kansas City. Kickoff on CBS is at 10 a.m. This is the third
time Enberg and Fouts have been assigned to a Chargers game.

-- The Broncos-Chargers "Monday Night Football" game on ESPN
delivered a combined rating of 33.4 in San Diego. In Denver, the
game posted a 41.5 rating. Nationally, the game did a 9.6 rating
with 9.536 million viewers.

-- ESPN will carry Friday night's Nuggets-Lakers NBA exhibition
game from the San Diego Sports Arena live at 7:30. Kevin Calabro,
Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy call the game.

-- John Kentera, who has been absent from XX Sports 1090 since
suffering a heart attack on Oct. 3, is shooting for a Nov. 13 to
return to work.

-- Joe Tutino, who was let go by XX Sports 1090 months ago, is
back on the air on a fill-in basis. Bill Werndl, who was let go the
same time as Tutino, is doing guests shots on just about every show
on the station.

-- North County high school football fans can catch former
Valley Center High star James Johnson when Washington plays No.
11-ranked Oregon at 12:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC. Johnson, a true
freshman, leads the Huskies with 28 receptions. In addition, former
Carlsbad quarterback Sean Canfield faces No. 7 USC in a 5 p.m. game
on ABC. Former Escondido receiver Darrell Catchings is expected to
play for the Beavers after missing time with hand and ankle
injuries.

Ratings game

-- Last Saturday's USC-Notre Dame game on NBC drew a solid 4.5
rating with 3.5 million viewers. Saturday's early game on ABC
between Oklahoma and Texas was even better: a 6.4 rating with 4.9
million viewers.

-- Comparing college football to the NFL is no contest. Last
Sunday's main NFL game on CBS ---- Titans-Patriots ---- did a 14.9
rating with 11.5 million viewers. And the main NFL game on Fox ----
Giants-Saints, by far the best NFL game of the day ---- did an 11.9
rating with 9.2 million viewers.

-- The NFL also trumped the baseball playoffs. Sunday night's
Dodgers-Phillies game, an 11-0 Phillies rout, did a 3.7 rating on
TBS. On NBC, a mediocre NFL "Sunday Night Football" game between
the Bears and Falcons did a 10.9 rating. In Los Angeles, home of
the Dodgers, the NFL game did an 8.4 rating while baseball did a
7.3.

-- The IRL, in the first year of a 10-year contract with Versus,
saw its viewership drop nearly 60 percent from last year when races
were on ESPN/ESPN2. According to SportsBusiness Journal, Versus
averaged 315,000 viewers for 12 IRL races while the average for 11
races on ESPN/ESPN2 last year was 778,000. ABC had five IRL races
and saw viewership drop from 2.727 million viewers for seven races
to 2.636 million this season.

Around the dial

-- You can't be lucky every week, and ESPN's luck on "Monday
Night Football" appears to have run out this week with the Eagles
(3-2) at the Redskins (2-4). The only draws are the Donovan
McNabb/Michael Vick quarterback situation with the Eagles and the
muddled coaching situation in Washington.

-- Martin Tyler, one of the most accomplished TV play-by-play
announcers in the United Kingdom, will join ESPN for the 2010 FIFA
World Cup in South Africa. Tyler, who has called matches in every
World Cup since 1978, will be the lead play-by-play voice for
ESPN's coverage in the U.S. ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC will air all 2010
World Cup matches live and in HD. The tournament runs from June
11-July 11.

-- ESPN has the final matches of the Professional Bowlers
Association Tour Women's and Seniors World Championships as well as
the PBA Trick Shot Invitational at 10 a.m. Sunday. At stake is a
$15,000 first prize in the women's and seniors competitions as well
as a berth in the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions.

-- The Golf Channel will have a 60-minute tribute to Payne
Stewart at 9 a.m. Sunday on the 10th anniversary of his death.

John Maffei's TV/Radio column appears every Friday. He can be
reached at 760-740-3547 or jmaffei@nctimes.com.